The city’s realms of gold

Thursday

Jan 24, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Albert B. Southwick

A few weeks ago I noted some leadership changes in the cultural institutions of Worcester County. I did not realize how extensive they are. We have had a virtual changing of the guard in the realm of community esthetics (for want of a better term).

Within the last few years, Matthias Waschek has succeeded James Welu at the Worcester Art Museum, Nicholas Capasso has succeeded Peter Timms at the Fitchburg Art Museum, Adrien C. Finlay has succeeded Stasia Hovanesian at Music Worcester, Joseph P. Cox has succeeded Stephen Pitcher at the Ecotarium, Honee Hess has taken the reins at the Worcester Craft Center from Carol Donnelly, Nikki Andersen has been selected by the Higgins Armory to follow Kent Russell. Mr. Russell is now in charge of the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton. In addition to all these, Tower Hill in Boylston is searching for a new director to succeed John Trexler. There may be other such transitions that I don’t know about.

This does not mean a clearing out of deadwood — anything but. Every one of these organizations and institutions has been served for years by directors and administrations of remarkable dedication and professionalism. It is much to be admired that they have been able to attract outstanding people to continue the good work. It testifies to their glowing reputations in a field hard to calculate.

We often judge our community on its economic progress or its schools. That is understandable. But there are other ways to measure a society and a community. One of them is in what John Keats called “the realms of gold” — the field of culture and fine arts where artistic creativity and appreciation has free rein to express itself.

Worcester County is exceptionally well served in this regard, as shown by the number of organizations I mentioned above. To me this means that civilization is alive and well and is being actively nourished in our community.

It is worth noting that most of these organizations have been made possible by voluntary contributions, not taxes. Some, such as the Worcester Art Museum, the Fitchburg Art Museum, the Museum of Russian Icons, the Higgins Armory Museum and Tower Hill were founded by large endowments from wealthy philanthropists. They have been sustained and expanded over the years mainly by donations from individuals, businesses, trusts, foundations, etc. Some of those gifts were substantial, but many were modest. They show that the community as a whole has gradually accepted the idea that culture and the fine arts are an integral part of the good life.

Some may wonder how a community benefits from collections and exhibits of artistic artifacts. For example, does it help a school kid from Worcester or Brookfield to observe a Renaissance painting or an ancient Russian religious icon or an Egyptian statue thousands of years old?

The answer is a resounding yes. Such experiences give a person perspective of several kinds. Perspective on the enormous variety of human experience. Perspective on the immense stretch of time that human beings have been engaged in trying to understand life and the universe. The person exposed to fine arts and historical artifacts is given something to contemplate. Contemplation is one of the more rewarding skills of human beings.

We don’t know how long human beings have been human. We are descendants of the Cro-Magnons who displaced the Neanderthals in Europe 40,000 years ago. At some point in time — maybe 100,000 years ago — the Cro-Magnons became Homo sapiens — us. How or when is unknown.

We don’t know when they acquired language. It probably was a painfully slow process. But we do know that they had language 35,000 years ago because the cave paintings of France and Spain are at least that old. And there is no way that those remarkable images incised on those walls deep underground could have been done without advanced communication skills.

Those paintings show that human beings have been using artistic perceptions for a long, long time. Like us, those cave artists tried to understand and interpret the world around them. Like us, they probably used a combination of experience, reason, intuition and guesswork in the effort to make sense of things.

At some point in the long journey, our forebears somehow became aware of the idea that we call beauty. What is beauty? Why does the sound of vibrating strings, whether hammered, plucked or scraped, or air-blown through intricate tubes fill us with intense emotions? Why do colors painted on a wall or a canvas give us feelings of pleasure? Why does a figure chiseled out of granite stir the deep feelings at the heart of human awareness?

We don’t really have the answers to those abiding questions and perhaps we never will. But we will never stop trying, just as we will never stop trying to unravel the secrets of the cosmos or the human brain.

In that endless quest it’s nice to know that Worcester County has some strong assets in its museums and collections. And, by most accounts these institutions have plans to expand on their past achievements and to serve a widening group of people. They don’t often make the garish headlines but their goals and accomplishments are emblems of society at its best. The art museums in particular give us a special perspective on the past and the endless striving of the human spirit to find meaning in the mystery of life.